On Media

Scarborough won't rule out 2016

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Wednesday that he hasn't closed the door on a 2016 presidential bid.

Asked by radio host Hugh Hewitt if he had ruled out running for president, Scarborough said he "won't rule anything out" and later added, "we'll see what happens."

"No, I won't rule anything out. I've always said and I've always been open about the fact that the greatest job I ever had and the greatest honor I've ever had was being in the House of Representatives," the former Florida congressman said. "It was an absolute thrill and I had to get out because I had young children to raise and I wanted to be back home in Pensacola. No, I've always said I wanted to get back in. It's just a matter of time. We'll see what happens."

Though Scarborough has floated the idea before, his name wasn't on anyone's short list until Bill Kristol, the founder of The Weekly Standard, dropped his name in a recent survey for POLITICO Magazine.

Few took Kristol's suggestion seriously — "Scarborough will get a kick out of being on the list, but almost certainly won’t pull on the snow boots for a trip to Iowa or New Hampshire," the magazine's editors wrote -- except for The Daily Caller, which cited "sources" who said it was "widely believed at MSNBC" that Scarborough was "mulling a presidential bid."

The Daily Caller also noted that Mark McKinnon, the former Bush adviser, "said he has talked about the prospect of a White House campaign with Scarborough 'ever since we first met years ago, but always in the abstract.'"